A Jasmine Wedding Story: The Mehndi
July 17th, 2008 @ 2:14 pm by Mrs. Jasmine
I’m armed with professional photos and finally ready to share the story of our wedding celebration: the mehndi, the wedding, our minimoon, the valima, and our honeymoon! I’m going to start with the story of our mehndi the night before the wedding. All mehndi photos were taken by family and friends.
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Our wedding celebration was to begin the Friday before the wedding with a mehndi at my parents’ house in Los Angeles. The Thursday before, I met my coordinator Angel for lunch and a pre-nuptial pow-wow. We laughed and chatted, but I barely touched my entree, which I chalked up to jitters. On the drive home, however, I started to feel extremely nauseated and I had to pull over. By the time I reached my parents’ home, I’d developed a high fever and spent the rest of the night alternating between my bed and the bathroom floor.
At this point, my parents were in a full-fledged panic. As they frantically wondered if they should somehow cancel or postpone the wedding events, they heard from my father-in-law, who is a physician. He wrote me a prescription for antibiotics, which quickly brought the fever down and appeased the nausea. I woke up the morning of my mehndi completely exhausted and weak, but at least I was keeping crackers and 7-UP down.
Is That a Margarita on an Elephant? Part 1 of Our Buddhist/Hindu Ceremony
July 2nd, 2008 @ 4:18 pm by Mrs. Margarita
As I’ve mentioned before, our wedding ceremony is going to be a combination of Buddhist and Hindu traditions. A few months ago, Mr. Margarita and I reviewed the details of our ceremonies/traditions and came up with an integrated ceremony. Buddhist ceremonies are about 30 minutes long, while some Hindu ceremonies can last for over two hours. Mr. Margarita and I, however, would like to keep our combined ceremony to 1.5 hours. It’s still a pretty lengthy ceremony so I am going to break it up into three posts.
Baraat
An important and festive component of the Hindu ceremony is the baraat, or arrival of the groom. The groom generally rides in on a decorated horse or elephant and is accompanied by his family members, relatives and friends in big procession with dhol player(s), and dancing.
Mr. Margarita will actually be riding in on a elephant from Have Trunk Will Travel. Mr. Margarita’s younger cousin (if he will cooperate) will also be riding the elephant.
Image courtesy of Andrena Photography
Our 2nd Ceremony
November 29th, 2007 @ 3:17 pm by Mrs. Caramel
Mr. Caramel and I debated a few times on whether or not we wanted to do the traditional Korean ceremony. We kept thinking that we would do it for the few relatives traveling from Korea to see us get married. But after going to my cousin’s traditional Korean ceremony and seeing the big headache of arranging a whole other event on top of the wedding– we basically said “heck no, please.” Our parents were okay with whatever we wanted to do–they knew that we weren’t very traditional so they left the decision to us. (Yeah lucky us we had very non-demanding parents!)
At the last moment we decided to have one if we only invited very close family members. We held it at my parents’ house and it ended up being only about 25 people, which was perfect for us! It wasn’t crazy and it was comfortable and pretty painless. The whole thing took about 30 minutes and we got to eat delicious food afterwards! Plus we made a lot of extra money, which was helpful for our honeymoon.
If anyone is teetering on the idea of a traditional ceremony, I would really have to say that I’m glad we did it. You only get married once in your life– what’s one more thing? Plus you have pictures to remember the event and it might mean a lot to your relatives. We even got to tweak things around to make it more comfortable and less stressful.
Phoenix Rising
November 9th, 2007 @ 3:07 pm by Mrs. Canary
When I was in Shanghai in the Spring, I made a point to stop by Chang Le Lu, which is notorious for custom qipao tailors. I wish I had taken pictures of the all the beautiful designs. I was surprised with all the modern variations, and many were so elegant– I could have started a complete qipao wardrobe.
I had visited a few qipao shops in New York’s Chinatown with my mom before I left for the trip, and she was adamant about having a dragon and phoenix design… because that’s just what you do for weddings! When you want to know why, just defer to Wikipedia!
The Fenghuang (phoenix) has very positive connotations. It is a symbol of high virtue and grace. The Fenghuang also symbolizes the union of yin and yang. It appears in peaceful and prosperous times but hides when trouble is near. In ancient
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Opulent Wedding Spending
November 9th, 2007 @ 11:10 am by Mrs. Jasmine
In my Bejeweled post, several commenters brought up a salient point: How do Indian families afford all this jewelry? Indian weddings are known for being lavish and over-the-top, but not much is said about how middle-to-lower class families afford the jewels and clothing, let alone the enormous guest list and multiple days of festivities. I thought it was a query worth exploring and I didn’t really know the answer, so I got to work: I talked to my parents, searched online, and even read a scholarly journal article (yes, I’m a true nerd at heart). And what I found was very revealing.
When East Meets West
October 26th, 2007 @ 4:00 pm by Mrs. Peony
Before I begin, I’d like to say that this topic may be controversial. I apologize in advance if I offend anyone and I want to let you know that it is not my intention to do so.
My family immigrated to the states when I was 7 years old. Having spent 20 years in the states, I wouldn’t be lying if I said that I feel a bit detached from the Korean culture and traditions. Mr Peony says that I’m a twinkie (yellow on the outside, white on the inside) because I’m a lot more Americanized in my ideals and beliefs.
Mr Peony is from Hong Kong. He went to high school in London then came to the states for college, where we met. His parents still live in Hong Kong. He is a self-proclaimed FOB (fresh off the boat) and even after a decade of living in the states, he’s still deeply rooted to the Chinese culture and its traditions.
Bejeweled
October 24th, 2007 @ 6:35 pm by Mrs. Jasmine
As a child, I spent many blissful hours playing with my mom’s jewelry. As I examined her ornate necklaces, earrings, bangles and rings, my mom reminded me that many of her favorite pieces would be mine when I got married. I would also receive my own special pieces to wear. And now that time is finally upon us! 
Father (and Mother!) Know Best
October 4th, 2007 @ 2:12 pm by Mrs. Jasmine
80’s Neon Christmas Tree
September 29th, 2007 @ 4:51 pm by Mrs. Gummi Bear
This is how I felt putting on this borrowed Korean Hanbok. My mother was very adamant about wanting to involve us in a Korean ceremony. She’s trying to block a full hour for it, but honestly, our main ceremony is 20 minutes at the most and most of our guests don’t speak a lick of Korean, including Mr. GB. But she’s my mom and so I gave in and put on the outfit for a few minutes while she pinned it.
sorry for the blurry weird image, it was late at night and very dark… although I do let off my own florescent glow…
Chinese People Eat Interesting Stuff
September 20th, 2007 @ 4:23 pm by Mrs. Eggplant
Chinese people eat interesting stuff. Even with my traditional family upbringing, I do a double take with some of the things my mom orders at restaurants. (Pig’s blood stew? Frog leg congee? Mmm. I think I’ll pass!) A few years ago, I took a vacation to China with my family. While we were there, I visited many herbal shops and markets. I am not kidding when I tell you that one of the medicine shops we visited was selling human placenta for soup-making purposes. Really! It’s believed that consuming the placenta will keep a person young.
Thankfully, a typical Chinese wedding banquet does not serve the human placenta or male deer.. umm… parts that I saw while in China. But there are a few dishes that may cause some non adventurous eaters to cringe. Most people, including myself, do not know the symbolism behind the dishes served at a Chinese banquet. Everything has a meaning!
For those of you who are having a Chinese banquet and want to provide an explanation of the dishes for your guests, I found a few helpful descriptions at http://www.chcp.org/banquet.html, a few of which I’ve copied and pasted below:
(Picture from Gastronomic Diary)
